Dont paint every family owned Skoda dealer with the same brush though....

There are still some out there who are Family owned, and are still official dealers and are top notch for service...

This is true, it is just they seem to have no control on the price of work

I would love and trust my local dealer to carry out all my service and repairs

Though when I can get an even better service / repair for a good £100 less where am I going to go

If you can get a reputable independent, to carry out the service, with more done at a cheaper cost then the local dealer needs to meet the price or will go under. which is NOT GOOD for any Skoda owner is it?

My local independent has, better equipment, and excellent experience so do I support my Skoda dealer (whom I really want to do as this is where I get my next vehicle from) or save £100 and get more done

I am going to go for the saving everytime as would anyone

I really do not know the answer myself

Pay the dealer £80 a corner for tyres or pop a 100yds down the road and get the same for £65

If the dealer said £70 a corner (then unknown to me popped it round the corner and made £40 on the deal himself) I may take it up to save the hassle

I do not know how tied they are?

Dealer you have a wheel bearing going, but we can not determine which, when it is worse or collapsed altogether it is £x

Independent, stick it on a rolling road yes it is wheel B and it is £x minus £12

Job done

As I said I really do not know, but if I was a manager of a dealer, then I Would prefer 100 jobs at £10 less than eight jobs at £10 more

Dealers seem to get a bit silly, screenwash £12 when you can get it for £5 100yds down the road

Why do they not send an apprentice down the road and buy 100 gallons of the stuff and charge £6

After all we would all love to have a 100% Skoda serviced and maintaind log for a few quid more not hundreds!

National aka Jimbo

Why do manufacturers assume we want the glass fronted, anonymous, bland dealerships anyway ? Rover went through this and sacked a lot of smaller dealers in the 70s and then again in the 90s and shot themselves in the foot because those dealers started selling other makes instead, and kept their customers.

£5 screenwash for £12 ?

You were lucky!

/1948 Show>

I had invoices from my Volvo dealer for engine oil costing £75 for a sumpfull, and a top up costing £22 when I could buy it for a tenner in halfords. Some "regular" servicing would come out at over £600 :eek:

to the original poster, colour codes are quite important, but if it was a trim part the partsman should have known to ask for a colour code.

unbeleivably, however, we've got one of the part you want in stock... (thats what you get for starting in a parts department run by imbeciles for a good few years) if you're still looking. Apolagies if i'm not allowed to post this due to commercial posting rules, etc. edit/delete as appropriate.

another wtf here about the £12 screen wash? we sell the VW stuff for fan jets at something like 1.96 a bottle (+ VAT).

as for the oil, depending on the grade/quality and the amount, £75 could be a reasonable amount. the shell stuff we use is near a tenner a litre..

We have one too....

And again the screen wash at 12 quid!?

Skoda alas are becoming, for me, more of a joke than when they were "unpopular" and being taken over by VW seems to have done more harm than good for the punter and small dealer alike. :(

interesting!

I know what i would rather own, a VAG car or a Skoda with no German input??

VAG put Skoda back on the map because they offered a VW at Skoda price, end of.

Forgot to say, if you are given crap service in life (with anything) vote with your feet.

The colour code for that is 47H as in the picture. In the parts mans defence an incomplete part number and inadequate vehicle details and maybe the previous customer had been a litlte trying. For the prosecution there is only one part number listed so there is no excuse of not been able to check price, availability and provide an estimated delivery time.

With regard to prices, the dealer can charge whatever they want, as a customer under the block exemption it's your choice wether you use them or not. If I was running a business and the importer was dictaing what I could/couldn't charge i'd tell them to take a running jump as it's none of their business.

You'd be amazed at how much time, effort and money a dealer has to spend on maintaining franchise standards, from the training of staff to what magazines they have in the waiting area, this has to be paid for by the customer.